Summer's over, break out your hoodies and soup recipes! I hope you guys had a great weekend and got out the house to enjoy the weather..or at least sat on your porch to read a good book.
Today was the final day of my health challenge that I started 28 days ago. I DID IT!! By did it I mean I did some form of exercise, ate damn well and tried to get more rest. That was it, no crazy rules, no restrictions, no"No's". I wanted this to be something that I stuck with so I knew in the beginning that super strict rules would not work for me, they never do. As soon as I break one rule, I break them all! So at the beginning of this I told myself that I wouldn't say "I can't eat that because I'm on a diet" or "No, I don't eat that". Instead, I cooked my meals before hand so that I didn't feel like I had to do anything. There was a change in my diet, as opposed to being on a diet. Anything I didn't think.was good to eat I tried to run.through a script in my head. For example, I love ice cream and sweets soooo much but living off that shit is costly and not healthy. Instead of saying I couldn't eat it, I tried to articulate WHY it was probably best that I didn't. You'd be amazed how times the answer was "you're not even hungry." Honesty is always best for me and I tried to be as open as I could. Sometimes I didn't make the best decisions but overall I improved my ability to find something different, name my emotions and listen to my body.
What started this challenge was crazily enough nothing to do with my actual weight. Two things happened in about a month of each other that felt different. First, my best friend and her brother were doing a cleanse and I said I'd participate. Same way I often do, only to quit. This time I never even got to the quit part, I said I would and my best friend said "What's that mean?For how long?!" and for a split second I almost cried. Not for my usual "what am I doing to my body" reason, but because my word meant nothing. There are few things that I hold more precious than my words. I hate to say I'll do things and not do them and I.hate hate hate the thought that I was saying something that no one believed. I filed that away for dealing with later and kept moving.
About a month later I saw a meme with Dr. Phil on it that said "You're fat, don't sugar coat it or you'll eat that too" and I laughed. Because I thought it was funny and in doing so realized I didn't even see myself as "fat" anymore. I'd stopped thinking about it for so long that it didn't feel like it was about me. Let me interject and say that I am not into fat shaming and all that bullshit, I'm not saying that I should've associated with the meme because I'm fat. I'm saying that if I saw a meme that said something about being Black, intelligent, owning a car, having a degree etc I would've thought about how it fit in with my life. The fact that I felt nothing told me that I was not at all being honest about a rather large, pun intended, part of who I was.
I decided that night that I'd do something that I'd done time and time again and failed at: losing weight. Just another opportunity to give myself a chance to prove myself wrong. A chance to make an actual commitment and stick to it if for nothing more than 28 days and I did!
I hope you did some exercising with me, it's less scary with people along for the ride. I hope that you understand that just because you always fail didn't mean you always will. You have to be willing to keep trying and trying until you get it. Try to talk yourself into something that scares you, as often as you can. You'll be surprised at how much you can do if you put your mind to it! #ICanIWillIAm #BabySteps #28DaysLater #AlmostTwentyPoundsDown
Today was the final day of my health challenge that I started 28 days ago. I DID IT!! By did it I mean I did some form of exercise, ate damn well and tried to get more rest. That was it, no crazy rules, no restrictions, no"No's". I wanted this to be something that I stuck with so I knew in the beginning that super strict rules would not work for me, they never do. As soon as I break one rule, I break them all! So at the beginning of this I told myself that I wouldn't say "I can't eat that because I'm on a diet" or "No, I don't eat that". Instead, I cooked my meals before hand so that I didn't feel like I had to do anything. There was a change in my diet, as opposed to being on a diet. Anything I didn't think.was good to eat I tried to run.through a script in my head. For example, I love ice cream and sweets soooo much but living off that shit is costly and not healthy. Instead of saying I couldn't eat it, I tried to articulate WHY it was probably best that I didn't. You'd be amazed how times the answer was "you're not even hungry." Honesty is always best for me and I tried to be as open as I could. Sometimes I didn't make the best decisions but overall I improved my ability to find something different, name my emotions and listen to my body.
What started this challenge was crazily enough nothing to do with my actual weight. Two things happened in about a month of each other that felt different. First, my best friend and her brother were doing a cleanse and I said I'd participate. Same way I often do, only to quit. This time I never even got to the quit part, I said I would and my best friend said "What's that mean?For how long?!" and for a split second I almost cried. Not for my usual "what am I doing to my body" reason, but because my word meant nothing. There are few things that I hold more precious than my words. I hate to say I'll do things and not do them and I.hate hate hate the thought that I was saying something that no one believed. I filed that away for dealing with later and kept moving.
About a month later I saw a meme with Dr. Phil on it that said "You're fat, don't sugar coat it or you'll eat that too" and I laughed. Because I thought it was funny and in doing so realized I didn't even see myself as "fat" anymore. I'd stopped thinking about it for so long that it didn't feel like it was about me. Let me interject and say that I am not into fat shaming and all that bullshit, I'm not saying that I should've associated with the meme because I'm fat. I'm saying that if I saw a meme that said something about being Black, intelligent, owning a car, having a degree etc I would've thought about how it fit in with my life. The fact that I felt nothing told me that I was not at all being honest about a rather large, pun intended, part of who I was.
I decided that night that I'd do something that I'd done time and time again and failed at: losing weight. Just another opportunity to give myself a chance to prove myself wrong. A chance to make an actual commitment and stick to it if for nothing more than 28 days and I did!
I hope you did some exercising with me, it's less scary with people along for the ride. I hope that you understand that just because you always fail didn't mean you always will. You have to be willing to keep trying and trying until you get it. Try to talk yourself into something that scares you, as often as you can. You'll be surprised at how much you can do if you put your mind to it! #ICanIWillIAm #BabySteps #28DaysLater #AlmostTwentyPoundsDown